hello from the other side

Hello lovely readers (or those of you that are left anyway)! How are you??? I’ve had a recent epiphany of late – the kind that is probably brought upon by both a lack of sleep and time. It’s a pretty simple one:

i am not perfect.

everything i do does not have to be perfect.

the pursuit of perfection takes a lot of time and is very often fruitless.

This epiphany could also have come about due to the fact that I’m now the 32-year-old mother of a five month old baby girl. I have had to face some harsh truths this year and climb back down to earth from dreamland. Pushing a human out of yourself sure makes you look at your physical body in a new light… especially the ugly bits you pretended for years didn’t exist. Looking at yourself in this light also forces you to not only accept those ugly bits, but perhaps even like them. Having a little someone to be responsible for has made me view life, the world, others, and myself, a little more realistically. A little less rose-tintedly. For the last few years, after a nasty and anonymous online exchange, I’ve been doing my best, mostly unknowingly, to tip toe around social media and the image I put out to the world of myself. Good angles, the best lighting, fabulous intentions, happy vibes, and most of all edited photographs and edited thoughts. But while it’s always great to feature one’s life as beautifully and positively as possible (thanks Lightroom, Bestie, VSCO, Snapseed etc etc) it’s just so. damn. time. consuming. Especially if I’m not a business or a brand making money out of all this perfecting. The more time I spent on editing text and photographs for both this blog and my social media platforms, the less time I spent on doing the thing I love most in the world: and that’s writing – writing about the life I’m living. For sure Instagram can provide the platform to curate a beautifully written post – but man, sometimes it’s just not enough characters to say what I need to say! I’m so tired being frozen into not doing or saying anything because it’s not good enough for my high standards or the standards I think others hold for me.

So, here I am, calling myself out for a return to the good old days of uncensored thoughts on my actual blog. Instagram is going back to being the place where I store my memories because god knows i haven’t printed a photo in years and it’s a lifesaver to have a concise space to hold all those special moments in neat little squares. Of course, if I have the time to snap and edit some pretty pics, I will upload them here – but I’m also going to give myself the permission to post things here that are not so perfect. Because the more I sit around spending day after day editing and proof reading and trying to make things look seamless, the less likely I am to actually post that thought or image… which is really sad! I have shit to say and, yes, it may be ugly or silly or stupid, but maybe a few people can relate to it and maybe, just maybe, we can go back to sharing and chatting about things that don’t involve an impeccable flatlay or an airbrushed face. And also, most importantly, I wanna beat the arse-holey algorithms. There is nothing worse than spending ages on a post for only a certain amount of people to see it. If you subscribe to a blog or newsletter, however, you can get blog posts and news direct to your inbox. No algorithm can take that away! I’ve missed out on so many posts from my favourite bloggers because I expect them to come up in my feeds and they just don’t anymore. So I’m actively going to search out all my old favourite blogs and subscribe to them today.

I have so much more to chat to you guys about! this year has been so fucking loopy and amazing and bonkers and scary and I’ve learnt so much about myself but I literally have ten minutes left until I’m in full on mom mode again, a mode which leaves very little time for writing! I have three mornings a week to myself, so I’m sure I can pump out at least one garbled blog post (much like this one) every few days. I need to find my writer fingers again. So here’s to telling and showing it like it is and spending more time on the things that really matter – you know, like living life and spewing my heart and guts out to the world at large and connecting to those who feel the same. As imperfect as it may be.

Comments

Fantastic! I’ve missed your writing. I’m having a baby in January and i love reading about real life! Not glossy beautiful my life and baby are perfect posts, or babies are so hard and you should be scared posts. But posts that are real and show the good with the ugly. Your writing is beautiful and your baby is a cutie – no need to edit or curate her!

Thanks so much Mel! She definitely does not need any editing haha and her mama is slowly accepting that neither does she. Best of luck with the rest of your pregnancy and the birth – mamahood IS hard and scary (and frustrating and boring and and and) but it is so wonderful too!

Good for you. The perfection thing came for me some time ago, but it is a work in progress. I also realised lately how much I have been bending over backwards to accomodate people, and yet they don’t seem to have the same loyalty to me. It has cost me dearly every single time. So now more. There are thousands of people out there desiring what others in a similar line of work are giving and making it work. There is no need to bend over; those that need what you have will come. I for one am going to stop placating people, wlaking on eggs and cjecking everything I post (apart from grammar and apelling of course ?). It’s the only way to send yoir true ripples into the world.
FYI – I have 2 girls of 8 and 4. Without even meaning to, they have taught me the most.

YAAAAS! Love this – you’re so right. I thought I had it all waxed until I suddenly had very limited time and realised how much of my life I had been spending on perfecting everything I did – from my body to my house to my online image and spaces… exhausting. And the bottom line is no matter how much you seek approval or try and look and sound “acceptable” – people either get you or they don’t. Find your tribe and all that jazz.

Omg
I wish you had told us all and we could have told you how much we love your beautiful self just for being you and how much your writing has been missed.

Sorry someone was so disappointed in themselves and their life that they had to hurt someone I consider possibly one of the most beautiful writers and woman. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner how much I appreciated you being so honest in your writing.

Thanks for coming back.

Ps- there is no such thing as a perfect mom, woman, person. While we know this. It takes special moments to realize this. I’m glad your little baba brought this to you. There are only moments, good or bad, and it is up to us to make them count.

Can’t wait to read your posts more regularly again! I never told you this before but the very first time I met you, I was super intimidated. Not because of any of the glossy shit… but because someone told me that you had this AMAZING BLOG that I HAD to read! Her words to me were “shes got real opinions & shit”! That was the first impression I had of you…your bad ass opinions! Keep at it hunny!

Haha that’s so funny! I’m guessing that was Carmen? Ya I was way more vocal about my opinions back in the day – now I just share other people’s opinions on Facebook and Twitter because I have no time as a mom to put mine into words! But am going to try my best! Thanks for all the support and love my friend – appreciate it so much x

Can I say something? Am I allowed to say something? I used to LOVE your posts. I don’t even know how I found you. A friend of a friend of friends blog kind of thing. I saw the noticeable change and wondered how things changed over night. (Your mention of an online exchange explains a lot) so I kind of stopped following you on instagram and your blog.

Something made me lurk the other day and I was so surprised to see you now have a baby… she’s so beautiful and motherhood looks good on you…. and you’re real again and plodding along this parenting thing with the rest of us.

Thanks Michelle! Of course you’re allowed to say something! Or I would have disabled the blog comments ;).

Yea, having your entire life and self and opinions and basically your very existence assaulted in a seventeen page email can sure create a wound and a lot more self doubt than just a regular nasty blog comment. It was after I had just become vegan, so I really should have expected it. I told myself that it didn’t matter, but I think on some sub-conscious level it did, and so I felt the need to edit myself in a big way so that no “bad” parts of me would be be available to be commented or “picked apart” by strangers. Just a learning curve in life I guess. Having a baby has sure made me not so bothered about exposing myself anymore though haha!